So I told myself I would not fly for one year. I returned from my last trip March 23, 2016, so today marks day 365.

Everyone loves travel, so I probably lost most readers who don’t want to sacrifice seeing the Great Barrier Reef before it dies, or acknowledge what’s killing it.

But this article isn’t about deprivation or sacrifice. The opposite, actually. It’s about celebrating life.

It’s about what I discovered when I declined to do something that for hundreds of thousands of years of human existence was impossible until barely over a century ago. Then luxury became taken for granted. Now people feel entitled to it, future generations be damned.

I’m not the first to do this. After deciding, I found others who did it before.